The Monday Girl (The Girl Duet #1)

by Julie Johnson

  - A man who will cheat on you as soon as the honeymoon stage ends.

  M onday morning arrives far too quickly for my liking.

  A beep outside my condo announces my ride — a sleek black town car, driven by a smartly-dressed man in a suit pulls up to my front curb at nine on the dot. I try to act unruffled as he holds open the door for me, scrambling into the back seat like I’ve done this kind of thing a million times, but I’m pretty sure he knows I’m a rube when I trip over my own feet and upend my purse all over the floor mat, sending lipsticks rolling in several directions. I spend the majority of the ride downtown subtly retrieving items from under the floor mat and, by the time I’ve reorganized the contents of my bag, we’ve reached the gilded security gates of AXC Pictures.

  Before I know it, the town car is pulling away and I’m standing on a narrow asphalt lot, staring up at the imposing warehouse-style building marked STAGE 13, trying to breathe around the sudden knot of nerves that have lodged in the back of my throat like a dollop of peanut butter.

  It’s infinitely bigger than the studio across town where I filmed Busy Bees a decade ago, and infinitely more intimidating. People are milling around, clutching clipboards, barking orders, murmuring into headsets, running packages back and forth from one soundstage to another before active filming starts for the day. I see two well-known actors from a popular sitcom walking inside the warehouse next door, and try not to gawk like a starstruck pre-teen. A flatbed truck carrying a beat-up car riddled with fake bullet holes rolls past, en route to the backlots.

  I am a single, steady drop in a swirling ocean of activity. Feet fused to the ground like cement, I stand and watch the chaos unfold, trying to take calming breaths.

  I’ve been here once before, when I was six years old. Cynthia took me on a behind-the-scenes tour in one of those god-awful tourist trolleys, hoping it would inspire me to try harder at my auditions, arabesque higher in my dance lessons, sing louder in my vocal classes, win bigger at the pageants she signed me up for starting when I was an infant. I remember staring at the labyrinth of buildings — the elaborate replica of a full New York City block, the Old West style street facades complete with tumbleweeds and wagon wheels, the special effects lab where they turn blank green screens into expanding universes and tropical rainforests and stormy oceans — feeling like I’d never, in a million years, be lucky enough to peek behind the roped-off areas where only the stars and authorized set workers step foot.

  It’s the strangest feeling, finding yourself awake in a reality you were sure would only ever remain a dream. I thought I was prepared for this moment, but now that I’m here I feel utterly out of place.

  After our run on Saturday, Harper drove me back downtown to retrieve my car from the Balthazar lot. Blessedly, the Honda rumbled to a start without giving me too much trouble, making it home to my condo before it rattled into silence. Sunday was a blur of signing contracts and reading through scripts, fending off Cynthia’s calls and avoiding the internet, not wanting to witness the bombardment of tabloid stories about my supposed “secret love affair” with Grayson.

  I know from the increasingly-snippy series of text messages Cynthia fired my way that she released a statement to the press about my role in Uncharted sometime yesterday afternoon. Since then, the paparazzi have been in full-on stalker mode, desperate to dig up anything they can about my history. The persistent buzz of my cellphone beneath my pillow woke me from a sound sleep long before my alarm had a chance this morning — a flood of text messages, emails, and news alerts about my newfound celebrity status.

  I’d barely wiped the caked, day-old mascara from beneath my eyes when I made the mistake of logging online. It was more than a little disconcerting to see my name trending with Grayson’s as the number one news article, just above a story about nuclear warheads in some remote, war-torn region half a world away. It’s strange enough to live in a universe where celebrity gossip ranks above nuclear weaponry in terms of newsworthiness; stranger still when that gossip concerns you.

  I hesitated only for the briefest of moments, finger hovering in uncertainty, before jabbing my thumb against the screen and sweeping my eyes over the story.

  SCANDAL ON SET: Hollywood’s Hottest New Couple!

  Quotes from “insiders” sat alongside the photo of Grayson and me outside the club the other night. I don’t know who these “insiders” are, but apparently, they’re positive Grayson and I are doing it like bunnies behind the scenes. I read about myself getting caught in flagrante in a trailer, in the back of a limousine, and even on the director’s chair after hours — which, honestly, doesn’t seem like it would be all that comfortable but, hell, at least my fictional sex life is full of spice.

  Then again, according to TMZ, since Grayson and I don’t follow each other on Twitter or Instagram, there’s likely already trouble in paradise and I may be headed for a broken heart, just like poor, jilted Helena before me.

  Damn . My fabricated relationship, doomed before it even began.

  Please, someone pass the tissues.

  Judging by the scathing tone of the comment section at the bottom of the article I read, the public seems divided about whether Grayson and I are truly star-crossed lovers or simply another publicity stunt, executed for the sole purpose of selling movie tickets. My eyes didn’t linger long — one internet troll’s opinion that I’m a “fugly, fame-chasing whore” was enough for a lifetime.

  There’s nothing like the anonymity of a keyboard and the prospect of tearing down a celebrity to get people revved up at six in the morning.

  Disgusted and wide awake, I’d tossed my phone back onto the bed, yanked off my pajama shorts, and headed for my tiny, fluorescent-lit bathroom with its ugly 1950s pink subway tile and paint-chipped, claw-foot bathtub my landlord never bothered to update. Standing beneath the scalding shower-head, I tried to empty my mind of everything except lines from the script and action sequences from the scenes we’re running through today, but my brain kept circling back to my new role as half a celebrity couple.

  I should be upset that the news is full of lies about me, that the press adheres to the truth about as stringently as a dieting socialite confronted with a frozen yogurt stand, but I found myself more bothered by the idea that, should I suffer some kind of delusional episode and actually fall for that cocky co-star of mine, our relationship would never be ours . It would belong to the masses, to the reporters, to the paparazzi. We would never have a private instant to just be us , outside the scope of our onscreen characters, or the world’s perceptions.

  Love can’t flourish beneath a microscope. Maybe that’s why so many celebrity marriages fall apart.

  Brad and Angelina… Ben and Jen… Blake and Miranda…

  Honestly, if two people with millions of dollars and faces straight out of a catalogue can’t make it work, is it really any wonder the rest of us are wandering around like neanderthals, grunting at each other in the monosyllabic, melancholy hope that someone will like us enough to procreate?

  With odds like that, the whole human race is totally fucked.

  In the old days, people used to go through their closets and throw out reminders of their ex’s — gather all the clothes and CDs that reminded them of that person and box them away in cardboard, where they couldn’t be seen. Now, post-breakup, it’s more important to clean out your social media accounts than it ever was your closet. Untagging shared photos and deleting cute posts about what, at the time, seemed a love that would extend into perpetuity has become the new norm.

  Everyone does it, from celebrities to the couple that once lived around the corner from you, back before he screwed his secretary and forfeited half his annual income in exchange for his wife quietly fading into an existence of Botox treatments and banging the cabana boy to quell her deep misery at aging out of her own marriage bracket.

  This culling of all digital traces is somewhat irrelevant — no matter how many photos you untag or posts you hide from your timeline, there wi
ll always remain a vestige of that relationship, a technological footprint that anyone can find, should they choose to delve deep enough into your internet history. At all times, you are just one screen-shot away from reliving a past love over again.

  And again and again and again and again.

  That’s probably why it’s more intimate for someone of my generation to follow you on Instagram than fondle your boobs in the backseat of their car after a semi-awkward second date. Our utter lack of permanence — for how can anything achieve longevity in such a fast-moving world — is coupled with the startling sense that everything — and I do mean everything, even that unflattering photo of you at your friend Sarah’s bat mitzvah in seventh grade — is permanent. Etched into the archives. Un-deletable.

  I don’t remember a time in which it was impossible to follow someone’s existence from present day back into the frizzy-haired, braces-wearing past with the simple scroll of a finger. I can’t recall a time when I could not examine someone from origin to actuality with the click of a button — though I know from the nostalgic, poetic waxings of older generations that such a time did once exist and, according to them, was wondrous in all its shaken-polaroid, watercolored, impermanent glory.

  There is no such thing as privacy, anymore. Especially now that I’m a quote-unquote celebrity.

  Just one more worry to add to my list, as if I wasn’t already anxious enough that I’m about to royally fuck up my first day on set.

  Yesterday, I felt confident, composed, completely sure that this wouldn’t be a total disaster. And yet, standing here now, every line I memorized has fled from my head. I’m suddenly back in high school, sitting at a metal-legged desk, staring at the blank answer section on the physics test in front of me and wondering why, for the life of me, I can’t remember anything about acceleration or inertia or wind resistance.

  “Miss Firestone.”

  The sound of my name brings me crashing back down to reality. A petite man with flawless caramel-colored skin, blocky, black-framed glasses, and skinny jeans that have more rips than any of the pairs in my closet is staring at me with thinly-veiled impatience. I get the sense, from his expression, that it’s not the first time he’s said my name. A single glance tells me it’s a struggle for this man to stand in one place for very long; he’s practically vibrating as seconds tick by and he’s forced to wait, immobile, for me to respond.

  “Sorry.” I force my arms to uncross and hang casually by my sides. “Just… taking it all in.”

  “Right .” He blinks. “I’m Trey, one of the production assistants. I was told to bring you straight to the costume department as soon as you arrived. They need to get you outfitted before the rest of the cast gets here and we start shooting. The costumes were designed with Helena in mind and they’ll need to make some…” He tilts his head and peers at me over the rims of his glasses. “…adjustments.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek and remind myself that there’s probably no tactful way to tell someone their size-two body won’t squeeze into Helena’s double-zero outfits, no matter how much sucking-in they do.

  “Lead the way,” I murmur.

  Trey jolts into motion like a sprinter off the blocks, making a beeline to a side door inside the warehouse, then leading me down a narrow hallway toward a series of dressing rooms. We stop in front of a door that says HELENA PUTNAM on the name plate. I feel my eyebrows go up.

  “Sorry about that,” Trey says, looking a little embarrassed as he slides the plate from its metal frame. “I’ll have someone replace it for you.”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  Trey reaches out and holds open the door for me. “This is your dressing room. Someone should be by in a few minutes to take your measurements. If you need anything at all, just let me know, okay?”

  He doesn’t wait for me to respond; he’s already walking away, speaking rapidly into his headset. I watch him disappear down the hallway and belatedly realize if I actually did need something, I have no idea how I’d even contact him to ask for it.

  Sighing, I step into the brightly lit dressing room, briefly taking in the sight of the plush couch against the left wall, the mini-fridge in the corner, and the illuminated vanity table on my right, before my eyes fall on the full-length mirror directly across from me. I feel them widen in shock — not at my reflection, but at the word that’s been scrawled across the glass surface in bright, hooker-red lipstick.

  SKANK

  My first thought is that if you’re going to go to all the trouble to vandalize company property and risk the wrath of Wyatt, you might as well commit to the damn act with something as permanent as paint. Hell, even Sharpie would last longer. My shock is quickly overtaken by flattered disbelief that I’ve managed to piss someone off this much without shooting so much as a single second of film.

  Sometimes, I impress even myself.

  I’m at a loss about who would’ve left such a lovely message for me… until I see the imprint of lips, where my admirer kissed the glass with that same, hateful shade of red, and abruptly realize there’s only one person on earth who had access to this dressing room and also has cause to loathe me with such passion.

  “Hey, I heard you were here— oh, shit.”

  I turn to look at Wyatt, who’s come to a full stop just inside the doorway, his expression twisting in anger. His blue eyes drift over to mine, full of anger and apologetic concern. “Helena left a parting message for you, I see.”

  “Yep. Nice of her.”

  “I’ll have someone come clean it up.” He takes a few steps into the room, so he’s standing close by my side. He rubs the back of his neck, clearly tense. “I should’ve known she’d done something like this. She showed up here earlier, wasted out of her mind, making a huge scene about how she wanted the part back, that we couldn’t replace her… I had to have her escorted off the property.”

  “Jesus.” I stare at the deep shadows beneath Wyatt’s eyes. “You look tired, Hastings.”

  His lips twitch. “Do you have any idea how much work goes into producing a movie?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Well, you’re about to find out.” He grins at me. “Come on, let’s go find Sloan. I’m sure he wants to talk to the whole cast as a group before we start shooting. You can leave your bag here, you won’t need it.”

  “I’m supposed to stay put, though — someone’s coming to take my measurements.”

  “That can wait.”

  “But I don’t want to get in trouble on my first day—”

  “Baby.” His grin widens as he heads for the door, shaking his head in amusement. “This is my movie. I make the rules around here. If I say you’re good, you’re good .”

  “Oh. Right.” My cheeks flame as I drop my bag on the couch and trail after him, eyes fixed on his broad shoulders. Wyatt’s laid-back nature makes it easy to underestimate just how important he is around here. He’s so boyish, I often forget he’s closer to Sloan’s age than mine.

  “Hey, Wyatt? Can I ask you something?”

  “You’re cute when you’re nervous,” he calls back to me.

  I scowl as I follow him. “I’m not nervous.”

  “Just spit it out.”

  “I was just wondering… I have this friend who does makeup. She’s actually worked for AXC in the past, on that weird werewolf show you guys put out. And I was thinking… or I guess I was hoping you might be able to pull some strings and…”

  He stops walking, brows lifting. “And… give her a gig on this movie?”

  I nod, feeling foolish. “Yeah.”

  He stares at me for a beat. “First of all, the werewolf show isn’t that weird.”

  “It’s pretty weird.” My voice drops to mimic the narrator of a horror movie trailer. “Boy wolves, more haunted by the acne craters on their faces than the craters of the moon that controls them… Girl wolves, contending with two monthly curses, both of them bloody…”

  Wyatt laughs. “You’re terrible.” />
  “I know.”

  “This friend… is she any good?”

  I nod.

  “And having her there with you on set will make you happy and complacent and listen to all my directions without question?”

  I smile. “Sure. If that’s what you need to tell yourself, sure .”

  “Uh huh.” He sighs, reaches into his back pocket, and pulls out a business card. “Give her this. It’s got a direct line to my assistant on it. Have your friend send over her information and we’ll see if we can get her paperwork filed before we ship out to Hawaii on Thursday.”

  “Really?”

  He shrugs. “It’s no big deal. Told you before, that’s how this industry works — it’s all about who you know.”

  “Still… Thanks, Wyatt. I really appreciate it.”

  “Don’t get all mushy on me, Firestone.” He starts walking again, making his way down the hallway until we’ve left the dressing rooms behind.

  “I’m not mushy,” I growl.

  “Uh huh.” He slows until I fall into step beside him. “Hate to break it to you, but I see straight through that prickly exterior you put up.”

  “Oh, like you’re some tough guy?” I snort. “You’re a big softie, we both know it.”

  “Have I ever pretended to be anything else?”

  I think about that for a moment. “No, I guess not. It’s just rare to meet someone in this town who doesn’t have an ego so large they can’t fit through standard door frames without ducking. Especially someone with your…pedigree.”

  “Pedigree? What am I, a prized schnauzer?”

  “You know what I mean. Your family. Your career. The films you’ve worked on… It’s a little intimidating, you have to admit.”

  “You don’t seem all that intimidated by me,” he says dryly, turning down another corridor. “In fact, you seem quite happy to give me a hard time every step of the way.”

  “Well, I’m an asshole,” I volley back, only half joking.

  “True enough.”

  I shove him on the arm. “You’re not supposed to agree with me.”